Busy Busy Busy

Sorry for my lack of blogging. I have been doing a lot of business traveling including the last week in Hawaii. The mountain pictured is Coco Head near Hanauma Bay only about 20 minutes outside of Honolulu. I had some time on Thursday after my meetings wrapped up so I drove out to Hanauama Bay to do some snorkeling. I spent about 1.5 hours in the water and I was ready to dry out a bit. I figure a little hike would be good.

When I looked closely at Coco Head, I noticed that there appeared to be a small path going up the side of the mountain with people on it. What worked for those people would work for me. I walked over to the mountain base. It turned out that the path was really an old cable car track about 3 feet wide. The rails went right up the mountain with the tiers in disparate states from perfect to rotting and missing. I could generally step from tier to tier when they were present and not rotting.

I started up the mountain thinking of some of the hills in Ireland that I had walked up some years before like Croagh Patrick and Knocknarea. Funny enough, the coastline of Oahu does remind me of the Northern Irish coastline near Ballycastle.

Coco Head was not a long hike like Croagh Patrick but the path became very steep. There is also a small railroad bridge which crosses a ravine. The ground looked about 20-30 feet below. Some of the tiers were rotten so as I crossed the ravine, I walked on the tiers on the spots supported by the large wood beams supporting the tiers from underneath. Once across the trail became very steep. Going up was tiring but not really a problem. At the top was a beautiful view of the Oahu's coast. Going down was actually much harder. The strain of going down was far more difficult on my legs than going up. It started easy but my thigh was worn out about half way down. In particular, crossing the ravine was much more difficult because the tier bridge was inclined. With my legs really sore, I had to be diligent not to go too fast. In the end, I made it to the bottom and was looking forward to walking in any direction except down.

My uncle Tom was also diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. We visited him last Saturday. Please pray for him.